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Dessert

Harrison Fruit Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, citron, coconut, almonds, wine, brandy, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Harrison Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Mix the baking powder with the flour, then add to the creamed mixture.

  3. Fold in the chopped and floured fruit, including citron, coconuts, and almonds.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake until the cake pulls away from the sides.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar and eggs to give the cake its rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Citron
Provides the candied fruit bulk and flavour throughout the cake.
Blanched almonds
Add texture and body to the crumb as they are folded through the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit. Fruit heavy in moisture or sugar can sink or make the crumb soggy if the batter is overmixed or the pieces are not floured. Folding gently and flouring the fruit helps keep it evenly suspended while the batter keeps its air and structure.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, almond, wine, brandy):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, almond, wine, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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